Fans of the phantom-fighting foursome got a special treat this past weekend, when an elaborate pitch by artist "Dapper" Dan Schoening and writer James Eatock surfaced online.

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The pair had recently pitched IDW, the comic company which released several issues starring the Ghostbusters last year.

"We knew that they had obtained the Ghostbusters comic publishing license and simply decided to pitch our ideas to them," Eatock told the Daily News.

"We began preliminary work on the pitch back in March 2009, and completed it a few months later."

The elaborate pitch included several pages of artwork, along with a detailed breakdown of all ten issues, character sketches and more. (See samples here!)

Schoening's artistic style may seem familiar to fans of the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of the popular "Ghostbusters: The Video Game," as it served as inspiration for the more cartoonish incarnations of Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston.

However, the publishers turned the duo down.

"We never really did [got] a definitive answer as to why the pitch was rejected," Eatock said.

"We later found out that they weren't prepared to take a risk with a ten-issue comic book," he said, "which is something we respect given the fact that the comic book industry has changed a great deal over the years.

Comic companies often focus more on small miniseries, Eatock said, with no overall story arc.

"What Dan and I had in mind was a Ghostbusters comic book that could run indefinitely, because we believe the franchise deserves that," he said.

Despite IDW's rejection, the comic pitch and its imagery are finding fans online. A Facebook fan page has already generated several hundred fans.

"The reaction from the Ghostbusters fans, and beyond, has been nothing short of incredible," said Eatock, British-born editor and publisher of cereal:geek magazine, a celebration of 1980s animation.

"We weren't too sure how people would react to the actual story we had planned," he said. And "reading through the first day's comments on Dan's deviantART account... we were onto something good with the pitch."

It shouldn't be of any surprise that the pair hope this kind of attention for their work will help change IDW's mind on the fate of the project.

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"I would like to think that IDW will sit up and [take] notice of the support that the pitch has achieved in the space of a few days," Eatock said.